Mushrooms Herbs Slice thin and sauté in butter until the moisture has evaporated and the mushrooms are well browned Add directly to the raw eggs Some of my favorite omelet combinations are spinach with feta, asparagus and shallots with Gruyère, and onions, peppers, and ham with cheddar cheese All classics, all delicious BACON If there’s one sure way to guarantee a relapse in an onthe-fence vegetarian, it’s to dangle a strip of crisply fried bacon in front of him I sometimes think that the only thing keeping my marriage harmonious is the unduly large number of make-up points I get every time I bring my wife bacon in bed These days, I’m pretty good at cooking it, if I do say so myself, but this was not always the case My bacon used to have a severe case of bipolar disorder: crispy and burnt in some spots, flaccid, rubbery, and undercooked in others Achieving perfectly crisp, evenly cooked bacon is all about patience You see, bacon is made up of two distinct elements—the fat (which is actually a mixture of fat and connective tissue) and the lean—and each cooks differently Fat tends to shrink quickly when heated, but after the initial shrinking stage, it takes quite a bit of time to finish cooking as the connective tissue that remains is slowly broken down (undercooked connective tissue is what causes rubbery bacon) The lean, on the other hand, shrinks less than the fat, and because of this differential, your bacon twists and buckles (just like the bimetal strip inside a thermostat) This twisting in turn exacerbates the situation, because not only are your fat and lean shrinking at different rates, but entire sections of the strip are now cooking at different rates, depending on whether or not they are in direct contact with the pan ... as the connective tissue that remains is slowly broken down (undercooked connective tissue is what causes rubbery bacon) The lean, on the other hand, shrinks less than the fat, and because of this differential, your bacon twists and buckles (just like the bimetal strip inside a thermostat)... connective tissue) and the lean—and each cooks differently Fat tends to shrink quickly when heated, but after the initial shrinking stage, it takes quite a bit of time to finish cooking as the connective tissue that remains is slowly broken down... harmonious is the unduly large number of make-up points I get every time I bring my wife bacon in bed These days, I’m pretty good at cooking it, if I do say so myself, but this was not always the case